Electrical connectors have been provided in a wide variety of configurations for terminating multiconductor cables such as integral flat or ribbon cables. With the ever-increasing miniaturization of electrical connectors and the ever-increasing numbers of wires in multi-conductor cables, electrical connectors of the character described have become increasingly complicated in order to accommodate relatively large numbers of conductors terminated in relatively small connectors. For instance, a ribbon cable may have conductors on close centerline spacing on the order of 25 mils. Connectors for such high density ribbon cables are used in a variety of applications, such as installing disk drives in small computers.
Most electrical connectors for terminating ribbon cables are of the insulation displacing termination type. These connectors generally include a housing having a mating face, an opposed cable-receiving face, and at least two rows of terminal-receiving passages extending between the faces. A plurality of terminals, most often stamped and formed of sheet metal material, are received in respective passages, each terminal having a mating portion toward the mating face of the housing and a generally U-shaped insulation displacement portion toward the cable-receiving face of the housing. Some form of secondary housing component, such as a cover, is provided for forcing conductors of the ribbon cable into the U-shaped insulation displacement portions of the terminals, with the cover embracing the ribbon cable between the cover and the cable-receiving face of the housing.
One of the problems with connectors of the character described immediately above, centers around the high density of the conductors in the ribbon cable. Because of the close spacing of the conductors, the insulation displacement portions of the terminals are arranged in two generally spaced-apart staggered rows with adjacent terminals located in opposite rows. Therefore, a conductor to be terminated in an insulation displacement portion located in a back row will necessarily have to pass between two insulation displacement portions located in a front row. Such close spacing may create problems and may result in shorting, especially since the narrow insulation displacement beams of a terminal present a low normal force on a given conductor which requires pushing the conductor further into the U-shaped insulation displacement portion of the terminal. This may result in substantial lateral movement of the beams forming the U-shaped insulation displacement portion, forcing the beams into the insulation of conductors adjacent to the terminated conductor. One solution to this particular problem is to utilize the so-called "hill and dale" system which locates portions of the conductors at the insulation displacement sections of adjacent terminals in different vertical positions or levels. However, molding the connector components for effecting this approach is rather complicated and expensive.
The present invention is directed to solving the problems identified above by providing an extremely simple solution whereby areas of the cover which forces the cable against the cable-receiving face of the housing and the conductors into the insulation displacement portions of the terminals, are recessed about the insulation displacement portions. This allows adjacent conductors on opposite sides of any given conductor which is being terminated to float into the recessed areas so that the beams of the insulation displacement portions are not forced into the adjacent conductors.